The Dragoon
by azazelbunny
Summary: A short story using Henson's "The Dragoon" build (from the Skyrim character build archive) as a basis for the main character. Hopefully it'll turn into a decent length story. It runs through the main quest with a Breton named Varnan as the main character. (I promise it's not a word-for-word playthrough!)
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1:

I felt the heat of the fire, but not the pain. That was part of the beauty of being married to a master enchanter: Armor that swallowed dragonfire like mead. I could hear the guardsmen scattering, taking cover anywhere they could. I know I shouldn't hold it against them, but it's still sort of tiring to be surrounded by cowards on every hunt. My training with the Order held me still, head bowed to protect my face. It didn't take long for the beast's pride to force it to observe the damage it thought it had done. All dragons were the same in that sense. They wanted to destroy and dominate, but only if they could see what they'd done when it was all over. The instant the flames stopped, I started. I leveled my weapon and charged.

Time always slows down when you're staring a dragon in the eye. The world around you pauses, like it's trying to decide what to do with this idiot who's running headfirst into total disaster. The Order has only one rule for this occasion: Decide for it. Despite the world hanging motionless and your heartbeat pounding in your ears, you have to neutralize the threat.

So I did.

The spear, aside from being a weapon unique to our Order, is a useful tool. It can be used for a variety of tasks. Tasks including hunting, knocking fruit out of trees, testing to see whether something is actually dead, and prompting your fellow soldiers to get over their fear of heights. What they really teach us to use it for is the quick and painless dispatching of the enemy. This is a two-part process: Positioning and piercing.

From day one the Generals teach us to use the spear to move around the battlefield, and it gives us a huge advantage no matter who we face. When facing dragons, this usually means digging the tip of the spear into the ground and vaulting up onto the dragon's neck or back. Once in position, we are expected to pierce one of the three execution points: The head, the heart, or the spine.

In one fluid motion I was up and straddling the beast's neck, moving my body in synch with its own wild thrashing as I tried to get to my feet. With all the time-slowing and decision-making, it's easy to forget that the dragon does not wait for you to kill it. Not falling off the dragon is an art unto itself. I'm sure I let out a guttural roar when I drove the spear through its skull. I remember feeling a surge of heat and then the resistance of dirt and stone beneath my weapon. The creature shuddered once, and died.

From behind the rocks and trees of the Reach's unforgiving landscape, guards and curious onlookers emerged. For the most part they just gawked at me, incredulous as the dragon's skin and flesh begin to flake away into brilliant golden ashes. Some of them actually cheered when they realized the blues and reds curling up from the corpse and into my body were the beast's soul, and that I was the dragonborn they'd been hearing so much about. It used to be a lot more exciting. Now it was getting kind of old. I slid off the dragon's cracked skull and landed with a soft thud. I could see a small band of horses approaching. I recognized their armor right away.

"Varnan Belamont, you crazy bastard."

"Gadnuin, you cowardly arrow-junkie." I replied in the way only best friends could.

"You realize we're a _team, _right? You don't have to do this by yourself."

"It's easier when I don't have to babysit."

"Babysit!" The wood elf scoffed, handing me the reins of the only empty horse. "If anything, _we_ have to babysit _you!_"

"Oh please!" I pulled myself up onto the horse's back and clipped my spear into a special rack all our horses are equipped with. "You'd rather hide in the shadows with your weird wispy bow-"

"Summoning weapons from Oblivion itself is an _art._"

"Yeah, yeah."

"We'll argue about this later, boys." We turned to look at Tar-Rae, our team's scout. "Varnan, the Jarl of Whiterun asked for you specifically."


	2. Chapter 2

"Why?"  
>"I don't know, and I don't care. It has to do with dragons and that means it's our problem." Tar-Rae said briskly, turning her horse to leave. "I assume it's because news of a dragonborn arriving in a land plagued by dragons doesn't waste any time in getting around."<br>"That's true." I murmured. Skyrim placed greater value on the dragon blood than even he did.

The Order was based in Cyrodil, dedicated to hunting monsters of all kinds. We used to be called The Knighthood of Stendarr, until we started leaning away from the "path of righteousness". We drifted further and further from Stendarr's teachings until our leader, Grandmaster Jecklin, declared that we had lost his favor. From that point onward we called ourselves the Order. That's all we were, after all. An Order.

When dragons started coming back to Skyrim, we started training to fight them. There were a few of the beasts who migrated over, presumably in search of prey and territory. We hunted those down whenever and wherever we could. That's how I discovered that I was dragonborn. I wasn't too keen on the idea at first. It came with a lot of strings attached, like an obligation to drop everything if a dragon was sighted. Even if that meant uprooting your life to move to Skyrim.

My hunting band came with me so as not to break our oath of loyalty. Tar-Rae, Gadnuin, Do'charr, and I settled down in Markarth for a while. Tar-Rae did her job as our scout and set us up with plenty of jobs hunting down the Forsworn in between responding to dragon sightings. It was enough to pay for supper each night. In an attempt not to clog the inn with foreign soldiers, the Jarl even let us rent a house in the city. It wasn't a fabulous life, and Markarth wasn't too fond of outsiders, but we made do. And now word was starting to get out – the hero of legend had arrived.

Gadnuin and I responded to most every call we got. Do'charr came with us if we were going to need really heavy womanpower. Never upset a Khajiit with a warhammer. You'd be surprised at how fast a tiger can swing one of those monstrosities. You'd also be surprised at how many people had never seen a spear. I remember one mage calling it "terribly primitive" until he saw me slit a dragon's belly open with it. That shut him up right quick.

Skyrim was a funny little place.

It was a two-day journey to Whiterun. I speak for all of us when I say we were relieved to see the city walls on the horizon as we crossed the plains. We were still getting used to how cold Skyrim was - for the first half of each day our fingers went numb gripping the reins and our teeth chattered until we were worried they might crack. When the sun was at its peak in the noontime, it was bearable. Mornings were not.

I remember getting a lot of weird looks on the way up to Dragonsreach, the Jarl's palace. I guess nobody there had ever seen armor crafted from the bones and scales of a dragon.

"I do not like the way they look at us here." Do'charr muttered.  
>"We're outsiders. Skyrim doesn't like outsiders. We're going to get funny looks from time to time." Tar-Rae hissed.<br>"Yes. This one is coming to realize that Skyrim is cold in more ways than one."

The Khajiit woman frowned and quickened her pace. I had infinite respect for Do'charr and her talents, but even more so for her patience. Ever since we arrived in Skyrim, people had viewed her as a thief and a drug dealer. Oh if only they could see how she flexed her claws every time they made a comment when they thought she was out of earshot. They would run for cover if they could see how her eyes screamed "murder".

The Jarl gave us a warm welcome when we arrived, one that featured a table full of food and mugs full of mead. He wasted no time in getting down to business.

"Listen, I'll be straightforward with you. If you're really dragonborn, than you need to know about the Dragonstone."  
>"Dragonstone?" I looked up from my plate with a frown. Calcemo, the court wizard back in Markarth, had been talking about a Dragonstone.<br>"According to my court wizard, it's a map of some sort."  
>"Yes," called a voice from the adjoining room. A mage in purple-blue robes strolled out with a book in his hands, flipping absently through the pages. "It's a map of dragon burial mounds. Would you believe these creatures are coming back to <em>life<em>?"  
>"I wouldn't." Gadnuin mumbled. I elbowed him hard.<br>"What makes you think that?" I said softly. The people of Skyrim weren't stupid – especially not the mages. "I assume you have evidence of some sort?"  
>"I have my resources – reliable resources – that tell me some of these mounds are empty. If this theory is correct, there should be another resurrection in Kynesgrove within the next four days. I would make haste, if I were you. The only things less patient than me in this world are the dragons themselves."<p>

**[Author's Note: Posting this partial chapter as a sort of interest check. If nobody wants to read it, I'm not going to try to write it.]**


End file.
